Summary and Reviews of The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

Media Reviews

The Washington Post. The greatest triumph is the way all this material, though it's focused on the peculiarities of Mormonism -- devout and heretical, ancient and modern -- illuminates the larger landscape of faith.

New York Times - Janet Maslin There is a man who explains how he managed to have three wedding nights in three weeks. There are women casting light on what justified and reinforced their faith in all-powerful male prophets. But this creates an exhausting cacophony. Mr. Ebershoff clearly had the doggedness to invent many voices. What he didn’t have — or want, given the book’s deliberate epistolary nature — was a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

San Francisco Chronicle - Dan Cryer The attack on polygamy by a Mormon apostate, Ann Eliza, is instrumental, when the church finally renounces it in 1890, in preserving it from the nation's wrath. The novel's gay men are straight arrows, committed to responsible relationships, while its heterosexual men are savage creatures of lust. Religion and sex paired, it seems, equals passion squared.

The Seattle Times - Richard Wallace Regrettably, Jordon's contemporary story offers little of the spiritual complexity of Ann Eliza's saga. As a mystery it is totally without suspense, and the characters, other than Jordon (who has a healthy sense of the absurd), are not well-developed or compelling. Sometimes, one good story is all you need.

Publishers Weekly [E]ssential reading for anyone seeking understanding of the subject.

Kirkus Reviews Reminiscent of Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose in scope and ambition, though the narrative sometimes drags.